


The Cautionary Tale of Jason Todd

by predilection



Series: Close Encounters and Cautionary Tales [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph hates the cautionary tale of Jason Todd.</p><p>(This is a companion piece/sequel to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1000379">Close Encounters of the Stephanie Brown Kind</a>".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cautionary Tale of Jason Todd

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in July 2010 and is a companion piece/sequel to "Close Encounters of the Stephanie Brown Kind". This takes place between the last two scenes of the fic, when Steph gets picked up from Jason's apartment. 
> 
> Warnings: This is unbetaed, comic book logic and violence abounds, and the Batfamily is abusive.

The car parked outside Jason's apartment appears non-descript expect for its tinted windows, but Steph knows the Batmobile when she sees it. 

"Okay," she says to Dick as she climbs into the backseat, "What the hell happened last night?" She had gone undercover and gotten herself kidnapped according to their plan, but Dick and Damian hadn't showed up as her backup like they were supposed to. Instead, she had ended up working with Jason Todd of all people -- the former Robin who she had been told repeatedly was a menace to society and to avoid at all costs.

As far as she is concerned, Dick and Babs have some serious explaining to do. 

From the passenger seat, Damian turns around to give her a once over. He takes in that she's wearing a t-shirt a few sizes too large for her and not much else. "What the hell are you wearing?" he asks.

She crosses her arms defensively and asks Dick, "Why is he in the car?"

Dick sighs. Damian huffs and crosses his own arms. "Don't worry, fatso," Damian tells her, turning away from her to face the windshield, "you'll grow into that shirt."

Steph wants to scream at both of them. She's about to do just that when Oracle's voice comes through the comm system. "Steph, we need to debrief you, but first we need to know how your shoulder is doing."

Steph never mentioned her shoulder, but she's not surprised Babs knows about it somehow. "It'll be fine," she says, keenly aware that it had been Jason who had stopped the bleeding and stitched her up. Jason, who as far as she had known, was a cold-blooded killer.

Steph feels anger that Babs wants to debrief her. Steph wants to debrief them. She wants to know what is going on.

Still, Steph tells them what happened up until the point she had met Jason for the first time. Before she talks about him, she wants to know where her backup was. "Where were you guys?" 

"Black Mask made his move in the east end," is all Dick says, and as much as she hadn't particularly liked being left on her own, Steph gets why it happened. For weeks they had been expecting Black Mask to take Penguin's territory, and if it had happened the night before, Dick and Damian would have had their hands full containing the turf wars and keeping the collateral damage to a minimum.

She frowns at a camera she knows is hidden the communication console, knowing Babs can probably see her. The kidnappers had stripped her, but she had still had a working tracking device hidden in the underwire of her bra.

"We're sorry, Steph," Dick says. Even after working with him for months, those words coming out of Batman's mouth still give her pause. Bruce never apologised, not like this at least.

"Steph," Babs asks, "Did you engage the targets because of outside factors?"

When Babs had briefed her on this mission, she had made clear what possible scenarios they could expect. They had accounted for Batman and Robin being needed elsewhere in Gotham, in which case it was Steph's job to lay low and wait for further instructions. Steph hadn't waited. She had acted, and although Steph knew that Babs probably already knew why, Babs wanted to hear Steph's side of the story.

So Steph told them about being with the other kidnapped girls, about hearing a commotion above her and figuring it was Batman and Robin. She hadn't expected the Red Hood to show up. She hadn't expected the Red Hood to help her. 

It also wasn't in her plan to be drugged or shot (it was a graze, but it still bleed pretty badly), and she was definitely thrown off when she had woken up in the Red Hood's apartment.

"We saw you collapse on the roof," Damian informs her, and she can hear the sneer in his voice. "Instant replay."

She grimaces in embarrassment, and then a thought hits her. If there were cameras there, why hadn't someone come for her then? Dick and Damian may have had their hands full half-way across town, but if Babs had thought Steph was in real danger, she would have sent someone. 

Bruce had warned Steph about Jason. He had held Jason up as an example of what not to be -- of what never to become. She was told of his death and his return. She was cautioned that his mind had become clouded by vengeance -- that he had become a crime lord and a murderer. But if he was so horrible, why had Babs allowed his interference? 

"You knew," she accuses Babs and Dick. "You both _knew_."

"Knew what?" Dick asks, sounding calm despite the hard lines she can see in his expression reflected in the rear-view mirror.

"You knew Jason wouldn't hurt me. That's why you didn't mount a rescue." They had known where Jason lived and even if they hadn't, she was still wearing a tracking device. They hadn't showed up until after she had called them. And then there was the fact that she had been drugged and unconscious. They had to have trusted Jason to take care of her. The alternative was unthinkable.

"Were you testing Jason?" she asks as soon as the thought comes to her.

To her surprise, this gets Damian's attention. He turns his head to glare at Dick, but says nothing.

Steph notices the way Dick's hands tighten on the steering wheel. "Jason's not..." he tries, "Jason was never quite what Bruce thought he was."

Babs' voice rescues him from explaining further. "Jason had a tendency to display extreme violence most often in the presence of Batman. It should be noted that his penchant for violence has decreased over time."

"Make no mistake," Dick says. "He's still violent and dangerous--"

"Then why did you let him 'rescue me'?" she demands, and she can't quite keep the anger out of her voice. She didn't know that he was anything but a threat, and she was the one who had woken up on his couch thinking there was a bomb strapped to his front door.

"He wasn't going to harm you," Dick informs her. "He would have called us, left you with emergency services or helped you himself."

"If he wasn't a threat to me... if you were going to test him... why didn't you tell me?" That's what's bothering her the most. "Why did you use me?"

No one answers, and for a moment the tension in the car is palatable. Finally, it's Babs who says, "We're sorry, Steph. We didn't think it would bother you this much."

She knows now that they had had her back, but for awhile she had been convinced she was on her own. She feels almost as if she had been the one being tested instead of Jason. This was the kind of shit Bruce had pulled on her all the time and she had always _hated_ it.

"Yeah, well, you weren't the one who had to spend quality time with someone you were convinced was going to stab you any second."

"He wouldn't--" Babs says, but Steph cuts her off.

"I know that _now_ , but I had no idea I was remotely safe! Why didn't anyone ever tell me Jason could be trusted?" If she's honest with herself, she's also bothered by how easily she dismissed him as trustworthy. She hadn't trusted him, not really, until he had let her out of his apartment. "And don't tell me you weren't sure if he was trustworthy. You knew he was, otherwise you wouldn't have let him get so close to me. Still, you used me to test him."

"It's not like that," Babs explains, "but I understand why you're upset. We had no idea Jason would be there last night. The opportunity to evaluate him presented itself, and... we took it. It was for the mission, and we're sorry."

Steph leans back against the upholstery and sighs as some of her tension and feelings of betrayal leave her. One of the reasons she likes working with Dick and Babs is because they make an effort to be honest with her. They also know when to apologise, which she appreciates.

Dick adds, "We should have told you about Jason." He glances at Damian. "We should have told both of you about him."

Steph wants to learn the truth about Jason. She wants to know why Bruce made Damian and herself fear him while Dick and Babs had faith in him. She wants to learn why, despite not really knowing him or trusting him, she had worked so well with him. 

"So tell us now," Steph says. 

Dick nods, resigned and understanding. "Okay," he says, meeting Steph's eyes in the rear-view mirror. Then he glances at Damian again, and it's to him he says, "It's about time you learned about your other older brother." 

Damian fidgets. Steph knows that he, too, wants to know about the second Robin and why the information they were given about him wasn't entirely accurate.

Dick explains, "No one really lied to you about Jason. They just never gave you the whole story. As you know, when Jason came back, he was a terror to be reckoned with." Steph never really understood the whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing, but she doesn't dare interrupt Dick when there's a chance he's going to actually going to get some answers. "He purposely stuck to tactics he knew would provoke Bruce. Jason was lost, confused and full of rage. He was so mad at Bruce... sometimes he struck out against Tim and I."

For a long moment, Dick is silent, and then Steph sees a small smile appears on his face. She's surprised that it's fond. 

"But he also tried to stop members of the Teen Titans from being murdered. He even traveled to other worlds to save the universe. He did a lot of things that went against the image he was trying to cultivate. Tim and I often met with him without Bruce's knowledge or consent. Jason fought us sometimes, and he almost always threatened us with bodily harm, but he gave us information about the underground workings of Gotham, information only a crime lord could provide. He even saved Tim's life once."

"So he's a snitch as well as a murderer?" Damian asks with distain.

Dick corrects him. "He's been an important ally."

This is all news to Steph. She had no idea any of them were in contact with Jason. She can almost understand Dick keeping in touch with him, but that Tim has been involved with Jason surprises her the most. She knows Tim hates Jason. Tim had, like Bruce, told her that Jason was dangerous and had ordered her to stay away from him. She had assumed Tim was looking out for her, but if Jason and Tim had worked together and if Jason had saved Tim's life, she couldn't understand why Tim hated him so much.

She rests her hands on her bare knees and digs her nails into her skin to keep from interrupting.

"He used to kill," Dick continues. "Bruce even suspected him of murder once when he was a Robin." Steph notices the way Damian sits up straighter in his seat. She knows Dick notices it too, but Dick doesn't pause. "But when Jason killed, it was always someone he felt truly deserved it and someone he knew would otherwise slip through the cracks in the justice system. Though that never justified his actions. No one has the right to be judge, jury and executioner. That was the first lesson Bruce taught all of us."

Damian bows his head, his fists clenched. Steph sees Dick look over at him and knows they're not just talking about Jason anymore. 

Jason's life experiences have been used as cautionary tales for Robins, and this telling of it is no exception. It's Damian's turn to be reminded of who not to become, which Steph thinks is slightly ironic given the context of the conversation.

"But you don't hate Jason," Steph points out and the realization startles her as the words come out of her mouth. "Even if you don't think he's always right, you still have faith in him."

 _He's your brother_ , she realizes, startling herself again. Dick has feelings for Jason in a similar way he does for Tim, Damian and even herself. Dick thinks of all of them as siblings, and just because Jason has ended up on a different path doesn't mean Dick has stopped looking out for him.

Damian's voice is quiet and bitter when he says, "Father hated him."

"No," Dick says and sighs. "Bruce was upset, hurt and even disappointed, but he blamed himself for everything that happened to Jason. I don't think he ever hated him."

Steph didn't know this either. "Bruce warned us to stay away from him," Steph says, just in case they had forgotten.

Babs answers her implicit question. "Bruce had his reasons. Both Bruce and Jason were motivated by vengeance, but after Jason killed someone, Bruce couldn't trust him. Jason came to stand for, among other things, the brand of justice Bruce abhorred. Maybe that's why Jason did what he did."

 _A son angry at his father_ , Steph observes. It makes her think of her own father and she grimaces. She doesn't want to be reminded of him, so she digs her nails deeper into her knees and focuses her attention on how Damian reacting to what he's hearing. Damian has been sinking deeper and deeper into his seat. Even though all Steph can see of him is the back of his head and one of his clenched fists resting by the gearbox, it's obvious he isn't enjoying this conversation.

"'Did'. You said 'what he _did_ '. Past tense," Damian points out and the tension in his voice is audible.

"My intelligence tells me that Jason hasn't killed anyone in the last year and a half," Babs confirms. "There have been rumours, but they remain unsubstantiated. The word on the street is that he's killed twelve people in the past six months, but those murders were committed by a group Jason is not connected with. Said group wanted to keep their involvement in the murders quiet and Jason knew this. We assume he took credit for them for the sake of maintaining his reputation."

Steph is suddenly overcome by the surprising urge to talk to Jason. She wants to ask him why someone trying so hard to uphold a bad boy image went out of his way to shut down a kidnapping ring. She wonders, _Was that also Jason's own brand of justice?_

"Be careful," Babs says, as if reading her mind. "You shouldn't approach him. He may not be killing anymore, but he's still armed and dangerous. His favoured tactic is to take out the wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, and ankles of his targets, often with carefully aimed blades and bullets. He incapacitates his enemies."

Damian whispers, "He's been using non-deadly force."

Steph immediately sees the shade of grey that Damian is getting at. They also use non-deadly force in their battle against crime. The only difference between them and Jason is that Jason is considered to be a bad guy.

"But he is still known to use deadly force," Dick tells Damian.

Damian's voice is still quiet when he reminds them, "I've shattered wrists without a gun. I've killed without one too."

Steph knows that Damian is comparing himself to Jason and that he doesn't like the conclusions he's coming to. She can't blame him, but the fact that he's getting upset is proof of how much he's grown in the last year. She's proud of him. She may not always like Damian, but she's grown fond of him. 

"Damian, you're not Jason," she tells him, when she realizes Dick isn't going to. 

Damian shakes his head. "No, I'm not." He sounds as if he's saying this to himself more than anyone else.

"So Jason's not exactly a bad guy?" Steph asks just as much for her own clarification as to draw attention away from Damian.

"Not anymore," Babs replies. "We don't think so, no. Though he's not quite fighting for truth and justice either."

Dick surprises her when he asks, "What do you think, Steph?"

"What?"

"You spent time with him, something neither of us have had the opportunity to for awhile."

Truthfully, she thinks there's something fundamentally unfair about the whole situation. She had spent the years since Jason's return thinking of him as an enemy. He had represented the antithesis of what she stood for and now she's learning that wasn't the whole truth. It was simply _a_ truth. One of many truths that relate to the infamous second Robin.

Jason hadn't been what she had expected. Sure, he had been abrasive and possibly deadly, but he also had saved her life without expecting anything in return. She had been on guard when she was with him, and with a pang of guilt she realizes that she probably hadn't needed to be.

She reaches up and places her fingers on Jason's t-shirt, over the fresh stitches he left in her skin. She tells them what she knows: "He thinks we all hate him. He thinks we don't trust him as far as we can throw him."

"Good," Babs says.

Steph wants to ask what could be possibly good about that. Steph knows what it's like to be hated and she knows what it's like to be hated by the Batfamily in particular. She suddenly feels angry on Jason's behalf.

Frustrated, Steph asks, "So are we supposed to trust him or not?"

They are finally approaching the manor and Dick fiddles with the appropriate controls on the main console. "I'm not sure yet," he admits. "But I want to."

"I'm not convinced," Babs tells them. "Regardless, it's still wise for us to keep our distance from him. The last thing we want to do is compromise his position or for him to compromise ours." 

Alfred is waiting for them in the Batcave's garage. He holds a set of fresh clothing for her and first-aid kit in his arms. Steph loves Alfred. Not only because he takes care of them but also because he's possibly the only person on the planet who points out the bullshit of the Batfamily and is respected for it. 

She gets out of the car, but before she goes to Alfred, she notices that Damian is standing by the passenger-side door, visibly tense and agitated. 

Dick is walking towards the upper-level where Babs is waiting for them and Steph is surprised he's not staying to talk to Damian. It's up to her then.

Steph takes a step towards him. "Damian."

Damian blurts out, "Why test Jason if they knew he could be trusted?"

Steph hears his unspoken question: _Do they trust_ me _?_

She feels for Damian. It wasn't long ago that she was Robin. She remembers what it felt like to be tested over and over again even though she felt she had proven herself a hundred times over. She had hated feeling like she was never quite good enough for whatever impossible standards Bruce had set. 

She frowns and places what she hopes is a comforting hand on Damian's shoulder. Damian shrugs it off, and leaves to change without a word. Steph watches him go and feels her own hands clench into fists. 

She's thankful for Alfred's silence as he ushers her over to an examination table and helps her out of the t-shirt so he can examine her shoulder. She doesn't want to talk to Babs or Dick for awhile. They're not Bruce, but sometimes they remind her a little too much of him. Bruce may not be with them right now, but his legacy of social incompetence remains, much to Steph's annoyance.

In her frustration, she has the sudden realization that the cautionary tale of Jason Todd isn't helping anyone anymore. It's making Damian doubt himself, and it's doing her no favours either. The warnings she had been told about him had been in the back of her mind when she had encountered Jason. They had made her hesitant to trust him, and now, even with everything she's learned, they're making her feel guilty for wanting to trust him. She supposes the cautionary tale was once a comfort for Bruce, but with him gone, it's not even serving that purpose anymore. 

Still, she thinks she understands Bruce's reasons for warning her about Jason. He hadn't wanted what had happened to Jason to happen to her. But even though she understands Bruce's logic, it bothers her that Jason's life story has been reduced to a caveat. Steph knows now that in every telling, pieces of Jason's history were left out, and now she's coming to terms with the fact that there's a hell of a lot on this particular cutting room floor. 

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes she doesn't really know anything about Jason. Jason is more of mystery now than ever. She doesn't understand his motives or why he helped her out like he did. She's curious.

It's her curiosity that makes her want to meet Jason again. As impossible as it sounds even to her, she wants to hear Jason tell his own story. 

And if she's honest with herself, Steph knows she wants to see him again for other reasons. Despite the fact she hadn't trusted him, she can't deny how well they worked together, or that she had _liked_ working with him. She hadn't felt that kind of chemistry with anyone since she and Tim had been partners, which she thinks is funny considering she's sure she and Jason aren't even friends.

She also feels guilty for never considering that there was more to Jason than what she had been told. She's not sure if she owes him an apology for that or not, but as she thinks about everything she's learned about Jason in the last twenty-four hours, she decides that, if nothing else, she owes him a chance.


End file.
